Japan
needs to review its current method for screening nuclear plant safety,
seismologist and former senior regulator Kunihiko Shimazaki said in a
recent interview. The current method risks underestimating the
magnitude of possible earthquakes that may hit nuclear plants,
Shimazaki, former acting chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority,
said.

This story is important because it points to a lack of consensus within Japan about how to assess nuclear plant safety.

Nuclear power's popularity has waned significantly in post-Fukushima
Japan. Japanese citizens near nuclear power plants have used the court
system to challenge efforts by the national government and nuclear
industry to resume nuclear power plant operations. For the most part, their efforts have not been successful

MIYAZAKI--A high court here rejected an
appeal by Kyushu residents seeking to shut down the only two nuclear
reactors operating in Japan, ruling that it is impossible to secure
absolute safety with nuclear energy. Presiding Judge Tomoichiro
Nishikawa of the Miyazaki branch of the Fukuoka High Court said April 6
that current science and technology standards cannot reach a level of
safety in which no radioactive materials are emitted regardless of the
severity of the accident at a nuclear plant.

“A judgment has to
be made based on the standard of what level of danger a society would be
willing to live with,” Nishikawa said.

Japan's political and legal bureaucracies may give judges the authority to make this type of decision, counter to public will.

This may be legally sound, but still morally inconsistent with democratic ideals, including human rights.

Who decides when the potential consequences of a decision are catastrophic?

Japan's former NRA regulator suggests that Japan's technocratic decision-making is not optimal and may overlook potentially catastrophic risks.

About Me

I am a Professor at a large public university. I study political economy and biopolitics (the politics of life). My interests are diverse but are broadly concerned with economic, social and environmental justice. I have published 5 books: Crisis Communication, Liberal Democracy and Ecological Sustainability: The Threat of Financial and Energy Complexes in the Twenty-First Century (2016); Fukusima and the Privatization of Risk (2013); Constructing Autism (2005); Governmentality, Biopower and Everyday Life (2008/2011); Governing Childhood (2010).
I also participated in an edited collection on Fukushima: Fukushima: Dispossession or Denuclearization (2014).